CHAPTER XIII 
QUEENS AND QUEEN-CELLS 
‘THE importance of young queens in an apiary 
cannot be over-estimated. They are a necessity 
if the utmost profit is to be obtained from the 
pursuit, and yet no phase of bee-keeping has less 
attention paid to it in the majority of cases. 
Why. the queen is so important is obvious, but 
what is not generally known is that queens, like 
most other things, deteriorate as they get older, 
until they. reach a stage when they are no longer 
profitable. A queen is at her best in the second 
season, and she will probably do well in her 
third, but after then ft is not advisable to retain 
her. Thus, then, theoretically we ought to renew 
our queens at the end of every second season or 
thereabouts, but personally I am no advocate -of 
such an arbitrary system. While a queen con- 
tinues to do well I should retain her to the third 
season, but I should have a younger queen ready 
to depose her if she failed before that time. 
When a queen is past her prime. the bees will 
depose her themselves, first building a series of 
cells called supersedure cells, and raising a young 
queen. The bees, however, may drive this work 
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